I Am King
by RyansKid
Summary: I am a killer. Cold...and wrathful. Sequel to Home is Where You Hang Yourself
1. My Domain

I am a killer. I am cold...and wrathful. Woe be to those who I am looking for. Woe to them and all of the people that they know and love.

I will murder half the town to find the the one I seek. I will fill the graveyards until I have you.

I will raze this city to the ground to find...him.

This place...this jungle of steel and glass and concrete. It is so foreign to me. I am not from here. Yet even as alien as it seems to me, I am still filled with a sense of familiarity.

Perhaps it is because I have heard so many stories about this city. Men would come to my home, my domain, and they would tell stories of Gotham City. The great glittering beacon of the world. Or at least it used to be. Crime, like a disease, had taken hold of the city. Killing it slowly from the inside out.

But then I heard new stories. Stories of a monster, stalking the rooftops of the city. Striking fear into the hearts of the men who would seek to spread the disease. A monster with the strength of ten men and wings with which he could swoop down and carry away his victims. And the men who told me these stories, they called this monster a...Bat Man.

When I was sent to my home, when I was first locked away, I was but a child. Small. Weak. Afraid. It was only me and Osito, me and little bear. My only friend. And when they first came for me, the men of Pena Duro, it was Osito who protected me. I used the knife hidden in his back to eviscerate the leader of the men who would have raped me. After that no one dared to touch Osito or me.

And it was in that hell that I trained. I trained my body. I would work for hours and hours at the gym. Running, lifting, stretching. I learned as much as I could from anyone who would teach me. I learned Muay Thai from a visiting master who had been thrown into Pena Duro for killing a man in a bar fight. A Brazilian taught me the art of Jujitsu. An American sailor showed my how to box while he was here for two months.

And I not only obtained for physical perfection, but I trained my mind as well. A Jesuit priest told me of religion, and music, and culture, all of which was absent in Pena Duro. I learned to speak Latin, French, English, and Urdu and Farsi. I read all the books I could get my hands on and I would dream of going to the beautiful places in their pages.

And when I became a man, strong and intelligent, I made my move. I became the king of Pena Duro. I had to fight through dozens of men to get to the old king, but they proved little challenge. And when I found him...I broke him.

Then the ones who run this place, they saw what I had become. The perfect physical and mental specimen. A tool they could use. A lab rat they could run test on. And run they did. I was pumped full of drugs, full of a poison called Venom. And this poison, while it made my body even stronger, it has made me weaker as a whole. Now I have an addiction. I need the Venom or I will die.

But I was still king. I was still in charge.

Yet even with my goal accomplished, even knowing that I was safe...I was still afraid. But not of Pena Duro. No, the many years I have spent here have desensitized me to the horror of this place. But I have been haunted by a dream. Haunted my entire life by this phantom, this ghost. Haunted by visions of a great bat grabbing me and smothering me and ripping me limb from limb.

So when I heard the stories of the Bat Man I knew. I knew that this was my chance to silence the visions, to overcome my fear. I had to come here, to Gotham City. And so I did.

I used my influence to stage a riot. Men willingly through themselves at death so that I may escape. I took as much of the drug as I could and I swam. I swam for hours and hours, fueled by the horrible thing pumping through my veins. But I finally made it here. To America.

And now I am in Gotham. I will find the Bat Man. I already know what I must do in order to break the bat.

But before I can put my plans into motion I have an appointment to keep. I have to find a certain doctor.


	2. Pulling The Strings

Money talks. And in a city like this, its voice is even louder. Unfortunately I had a distinct lack of funds, so I had to go about my business another way.

I went to the places I had heard about. The seedy bars. The back room casinos. I went there and I threatened and I fought until I had a meeting with what remained of Gotham's organized crime. I told them what I had planned. That I would break the Bat Man. That I would finish him.

And they laughed.

They told me I was a fool. That the Bat Man could not be killed. That a man had come to them, much like I did, and had made them a similar offer. That he would kill the Bat Man for half of what they had. They told me that just like him, I would fail. Get out, is what they told me. Do not come back we will kill you, they said.

When their thugs tried to escort me out I turned the dial on my wrist and the unholy Venom began to flow. I took the first man's hands and I squeezed, listening to the pop, pop, pop of his bones being broken and ground to dust. And when the second one tried to pull his weapon I wrapped my hand around his throat and broke his neck like a stick.

After that they listened. My plan began to sound better to them. And when they asked what I wanted in return for my service I told them. Nothing. All I wanted was the Bat Man.

And they smiled their shark smiles and gave me everything I needed. A custom fitted suit to cover the network of tube running from my wrists to the top of my spinal column. A group of men to carry out my orders. And all the money I needed to get things done.

It was critical for me to to have Jonathan Crane join my crusade. I had read as much as I could on the history of the Bat Man. I learned of his enemies, and Crane was one of the deadliest. His skills as a chemist would be valuable as I would need him to synthesize more Venom to keep me alive. But upon further investigation I found that Crane had been reduced to little more than a physical shell, his mind completely shut down after being taken in by the Bat Man at Axis Chemicals.

So I would need help from another doctor.

Now, staring at the frail little thing across from me, I find it very hard to believe that she had taken part in one of the darkest series of event in the history of this city. I had listened to the other prisoners stories well. They told tales of this ones beauty. But from where I was I couldn't see it. She had terrible scars running from the corners of her mouth up the side of her face.

"So...uh...who are you again hehe?"

"My name is not important at this point Doctor Quinzel."

"Did Mister J. send you? Did my puddin send someone to check on me?"

The mob me had told me about this Mister J. This Joker. A man with no morals. No fear. A smart man who knew how to see things through to the end. And end he did. Drowned in a bath of toxic chemicals by another enemy of the Bat Man, a former district attorney named Two-Face.

"No. I'm afraid not. I am here to talk to you about one of your old friends though Doctor Quinzel."

"Hehehe...call me Harley. That's what Mister J. called me. Harley Quinn. Get it?"

"Yes. Very amusing. Now...Harley...I want to talk to you about Doctor Crane."

With the mention of Doctor Crane the weak little thing across the table from me let out a long low sob. Tears ran down her face and she shook like a small dog. What I found strange was the little fits of laughter mixed in with her sobs.

"Oh...poor Jonathan. Poor, poor, Doctor Crane."

"So you remember him Harley?"

"It's Doctor Quinzel thank you. And Oh, how could I ever forget him. Jonathan loves me. He loves me. Even his other loves me. But the other...he only loves me when I'm crying."

I had seen people like this inside the walls of Pena Duro. People who change the way the act, the way they move, the very way they think at the drop of a hat.

"Have you had any contact with Doctor Crane since being locked away in here?"

"No, no, no. Is he ok? Is Jonathan ok?"

"No. He is not, ok...I have talked to his doctor, a Doctor Elwes. He says he has never seen anything like what has happened with Doctor Crane."

"Oh God...what's wrong...what's happened to him?"

"He is completely void of all signs of mental activity. Doctor Elwes has run CAT scans and they show full brain activity. But Doctor Crane does nothing. He does not move. He does not speak except for the occasional low gutteral howl late in the night. He does not even eat. They have him on an IV drip to keep him alive."

"No. No...God no."

"Would you like to help the good doctor? Would you like to save him Doctor Quinzel?"

The blond woman bobbed her head up and down furiously, reminding me of some twisted human marionette.

"I have men outside, waiting for me to call them. When I call these men will activate a series of bombs I have set across this facility. All the inmates will be released. This is all part of my plan to destroy the Bat Man. But I need your help. I need you to bring Doctor Crane back from what ever dream land he is stuck in. Will you help me Doctor Quinzel?"

I was answered with a hysterical laughter and watched as the girl twisted her way out of her straight jacket.

"I told you...my name is Harley. And the answer is yes. With Jonny next to me I know I'll be able to find Mister J. I know my puddin will come back to me."

"Very well...Harley."

As the explosions rocked the facility I turned the dial and pumped the Venom into my bloodstream. I felt it course through my body, feeling my muscles gaining mass until they ripped the mob suit I had been given.

I grabbed the girl by the arm and led her down the the endless corridors towards Crane's cell. The guards tried to stop me, but failed. The last thing most of them saw was their own feeble fingers clawing at the leather of my mask as I choked the life from their bodies.

Arriving at his cell Harley let out a screech of glee.

"Jonny? Hey, Doc! We're bustin you out hehehehe."

I keys I had lifted from the corpse of a guard. Even my drug enhanced strength has limits. Turning the key I opened the door and the first thing that hit me was the smell. The smell of human death was all over the room, suffocating it. Then I saw the thing in the corner.

Many people in the city had come to call this man the Scarecrow. His name was most certainly fitting. His emaciated frame lay hunched over, the IV dripping naught but the most vital of fluids into his body. His skin was stretched tight over his body making every bone and joint look more pronounced, and his eyes were sunk back into his skull.

"Oh God...Jonny!"

The girl pushed past me and ran to the man...if what was left of him could be called a man. She sat him up and took his head in her hands. His face held no expression, his eyes no sign of life.

"Jonny! Jonny look at me. You have to snap out of this. What did you do to yourself. Jonny! Jonathan!"

Harley began to weep, the laughter still coming between the sobs.

"Doc...Jonny. Please...come back. Come back! Please come..."

The skeleton, or Scarecrow I suppose, sprung to life in an instant. He grabbed her by the hair and pulled her head in close, kissing hard, then moving his mouth to taste the girl's tears. Then he let her go and just stared at her with those sunken eyes.

"Harley...you're crying. I love you when you're crying."

"I know Jonny. I know."

"Who are you?"

Crane tried to stand but failed. Harley helped lift him and handed him to me.

"I am Bane. I will break the Bat."


End file.
